Monday, March 22, 2010

Book Shelves Built for a Toddler

My baby is nearly 20 months old and while I'd love to keep her a chunky monkey baby I have to face reality and admit that she's a toddler in need of a toddler room and not a nursery anymore. So Poppa (the hot hubby who is referred to as Poppa and not dad because when we watched the movie The Patriot and it got to the part where the little girl calls out "Poppa, please don't go," so tearing up right now just thinking of it, he turns to me and declares that he will be called Poppa. When this man has wild hair brain ideas, I've learned not to object, just go with it, like him insisting on wearing a white tux to our wedding, yep, just roll with it.) Anyways Poppa and I started looking for ways to turn her sweet nursery into a more toddler friendly room. Since the monkey loves to read books and be read to we decided that book shelves where she could reach her books would be a good place to start.
I've seen many versions and ideas of what I thought would be cute like the rain gutter shelves at The Stories of A To Z or these at Ikea and I really liked these DIY shelves at Frugal Home Ideas but they weren't exactly fitting what I had in my mind until I saw these at Frugal Home Designs and it was exactly what I had pictured in my mind and thus began making our own display book shelves.

Step 1: To begin I cut the 6 foot boards in half so that I had 4 that were now 3 feet long. I sanded the edges of my boards and took one now 1x3 and one now 2x3 and glued it into an L shape using my wood glue.

Step 2: I think drilled a hole and screwed screws into the back to hold the L shape.
Step 3: I took the 1/2x3 and glued it to the front to make a little lip and again drilled screws to hold it in place. Now since this is the front and will show I took the time to counter sink the screws and applied caulk to cover the holes.

At this point repeat the steps until you have 4 complete shelves.
Step 4: Prime and Paint with color of choice, we choose white and let dry in a fancy and classy way like on top or your trash bins.

Step 5: Now you are ready to have Poppa install them for you cause finding studs in the wall is not my specialty, finding a stud for a husband on the other hand is. We used 3" screws.

I wasn't concerned about the screws showing because I knew the books would cover them up.

We plan on adding a table and chair right below the shelves so she can have an activity center and a place to read. For now she uses the little rocking chair that was my mom's when she was little, mine when I was little and now it's Monkey's. Just added fabric to the seat to make it match her room.

Step 6: Show the monkey her new book shelves and watch her enjoy to your hearts content. Please excuse her ragamuffin look here. It's not a style I'm hoping will be "in" but it was bed time and that's when she loves getting her books.